Most-loved serial killer Dexter bows out

Most-loved serial killer Dexter bows out

UNITED STATES - Everyone's favourite serial killer - and one of TV's most famous anti-heroes - is finally bidding viewers goodbye.

Dexter, the title murderercum- blood splatter analyst featured in the hit series of the same name, will leave the goggle box this year after both creeping out and charming audiences for the past seven seasons.

And American actor Michael C. Hall, who plays the title role, is having mixed feelings after wrapping up production for the eighth and final season of the show.

Speaking to Life! over the telephone from Los Angeles, the 42-year-old sounds slightly worn out, but also earnest and refreshingly straightforward during the 40-minute interview.

"It's the last season and I'm looking forward to seeing how people respond.

But I'm feeling very tired and I'm probably sleeping more deeply now than I was before. I feel a great sense of sadness, but also a sense of pride and collective accomplishment.

"I feel like this is only the beginning of my decompression process."

It is easy to understand why Hall would feel a little stretched by the role, which earned him a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor in 2010.

According to American magazine TV Guide, he earns about US$295,000 (S$374,700) an episode, making him one of the highest-paid TV stars around.

In comparison, actor Jon Hamm makes US$250,000 for an episode of Mad Men.

The character of Dexter is a dark and complex one, emotionally divorced from society, and ruthless in the way he kills those whom he thinks "deserves" it.

His adversaries have included the brilliant but unassuming serial killer Arthur Mitchell, otherwise known as the Trinity Killer and played by John Lithgow.

Dexter paid a heavy price for his obsessive hunt of the Trinity Killer when Mitchell killed Dexter's romantic partner Rita Bennett (Julie Benz) in Season 4.

Other memorable characters that Dexter has slayed include Travis Marshall or the Doomsday Killer, portrayed by Colin Hanks, who thinks of every target as a religious sacrifice; as well as Little Chino, played by the 1.99m-tall Matthew Willig, who takes down people with a machete.

While it is hard for viewers to condone what Dexter does, they also feel an ambivalent satisfaction when the vigilante goes after murderers who would otherwise go unpunished.

The actor says, half in jest: "As far as serial killers go, Dexter is lovable." He adds thoughtfully: "Anti-heroes are all over the place on TV and it suggests that people are relishing the chance to identify with people who are inherently flawed and human in that way.

"Dexter is flawed, but the character seems to resonate with people."

When the actor is out in public, fans interact with him, though not in the conventional star-struck manner.

"People will recognise me at a restaurant and say, 'I hope they don't put me on your table'. And people are always very polite. In a supermarket line, they'll be like, 'You go ahead. No, no, you go first. I'm sure you're in a hurry'."

Chuckling, he says: "In all seriousness, people who are most afraid or skittish won't say anything at all, so I don't get to hear from them."

Looking back on the past seasons, he is "grateful" that the role of Dexter has evolved.

"There are things that the character went through even in the third season, that I never imagined would happen in the first, let alone where we are now.

"It has allowed me as an actor to explore different things, and yet everything is still all plausible and cohesive.

Life has weighed down much more heavily on Dexter now than the Dexter at the beginning, but it still feels like the same person, only that he has gone through change."

It is difficult for him to choose a favourite moment from the series, but a number of "favourite kills" stick out. "I always look back on Little Chino from the second season because he's so big. It was fun to take down someone who is a giant.

"And of course, the Trinity Killer always tops the list. He was the most formidable adversary and got the best of Dexter that no one else has.

"It's difficult to single out Dexter's victims. I think he loves them the way a mother loves her children - equally," he says, deadpan.

Hall is a lot more certain about his least favourite moments filming for the show. "There's one time I had to swim to shore and the water was so cold.

Anything involving cold ocean water is my least favourite moment."

Asked what he will miss most then and he starts to sound sentimental. "Over the course of the show, you came to appreciate what a unique thing it was and to have a group as professional and talented as we have from cast to crew.

"We felt like a second family to one another. So I think I'll really miss that sense of family and shared history, and shared sense of creative purpose."

He would not be drawn into discussing whether there will be a movie spin-off of the show.

"I can't answer that definitively without giving anything away. Anyway, I haven't really allowed myself to think beyond doing the best job on this season.

"The final episode will give people a sense of closure and I just feel grateful that as we were sputtering to the finish line, we had something really decisive and exciting to play."

While he says it is "unlikely" that he will be looking to act in another longrunning TV series for a while, he cannot help adding: "But I said the same thing about Six Feet Under and look where that got me. So maybe there's something on the horizon I won't be able to pass up and I certainly won't pass up on working on TV.

"But I don't see myself signing up for a TV series right away."

Before Dexter, he played closeted David Fisher on Six Feet Under (2001- 2005), the acclaimed HBO drama set in a funeral parlour and created and produced by Oscar-winning director Alan Ball.

Fans will see him in the new film Kill Your Darlings, a drama about the great poets of the Beat Generation in 1950s United States that also stars Daniel Radcliffe. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is screening at the Toronto International Film Festival this week.

Hall, who is dating novelist Morgan Macgregor, adds that he is ready to lighten up. "I don't want to do something different for the sake of being different, but I do welcome the notion of doing something that calls for a lighter, more comedic sense of broad energy.

"I'm ready to put Dexter down and feel what life is like without all of his stresses and his formidable dark side.

"You know, I'm a pretty nice guy. But maybe I've been a nicer guy for having done all of that on screen."

In any case, he knows that his name will always be associated with Dexter. "I have done it for eight seasons and Dexter will probably always be considered one of the defining roles of my career, and I'm comfortable with that.

"I'm proud of the show and the work we've all done. If at the end of the day, Dexter is one of the top things I'm remembered for, I'll be very happy."

Other anti-heroes on the TV screen

Walter White

Seen on: Breaking Bad

Played by: Bryan Cranston

Also known by his alias Heisenberg, Walter White is a high-school chemistry teacher who, after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, starts producing and selling the drug methamphetamine in order to ensure that his family has financial security after he dies.

Now in its fifth and last season, the series sees White become progressively darker as he turns into a murderous thug.

Cranston, 57, has won much acclaim for playing White, including three consecutive Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actor In A Drama Series - making him only the second person to do so since Bill Cosby won thrice for I Spy from 1966 to 1968.

Breaking Bad Season 3 airs on

Sundance Channel (mio TV Channel 401) every Thursday at 11pm.

Hannibal Lecter

Seen on: Hannibal

Played by: Mads Mikkelsen

This cannibal character from Thomas Harris' thrillers has been portrayed by various actors numerous times before, most famously by Anthony Hopkins in his Oscar-winning turn in The Silence Of The Lambs (1988).

But Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, 47, is said to have given the role gravitas and elegance. In this TV version, forensic psychiatrist Hannibal is mostly seen building his relationship with FBI special investigator Will Graham (Hugh Dancy).

Over the course of the season, he is often seen killing innocent victims as well as eating various human parts.

Re-runs of the show's first season air on AXN (StarHub TV Channel 511) on weekends at various times.

Francis Underwood

Seen on: House Of Cards

Played by: Kevin Spacey

In this American version of the acclaimed British television drama aired in 1990, Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey takes on the role of sinister politician Francis Underwood, who will stop at nothing to get ahead in politics. He manipulates people and situations, and does not care if he is killing off people.

Spacey, 54, is a nominee for Best Lead Actor In A Drama Series at the upcoming Emmy Awards. The show's second season is currently in production.

The series is online-streaming site Netflix's first original drama series.

Martin Kaan

Seen on: House Of Lies

Played by: Don Cheadle

Like Underwood, Martin Kaan stops at nothing to get what he wants. As a cunning management consultant, he exploits the weaknesses of others to force them into signing business deals.

He is also a chauvinistic womaniser.

The Seattle Post Intelligence wrote that the show "swims in a shark tank of such appalling survival-of-the-nastiest bad behaviour, it could launch its own channel: Human Animal Planet".

Don Cheadle, 48, won a Golden Globe for Best Actor In A TV Series Musical Or Comedy for the role last year. He is up for an Emmy for Best Actor (Comedy) at the Emmy Awards later this month.

The series has been renewed for a third season, which is currently in production.

House Of Lies is available on American cable network Showtime but has not been shown on cable here yet.

Hank Moody

Seen on: Californication

Played by: David Duchovny

Hank Moody is not as dark as some of the other anti-heroes listed above, but he is hardly a classic hero with his obnoxious, crass behaviour and his substance abuse problems. He fails to get along with his family and is known to have many sexual misadventures, including being charged for statutory rape.

David Duchovny, 53, won a Golden Globe award for Best Actor for the role in 2007. Past seasons aired on FX (StarHub TV Channel 507), but there is no word on when the next season will be shown. The seventh, latest season is in production.


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